The End Of Obamaism

It has not been the best couple of weeks for Barack Obama, now in his second lap around the track as the president of these United States. It was not long ago that he was somewhat astride the political world, having faced down the crazoid Republicans who make up the worst congress that we ever have elected. What did he accomplish? The country will not default on its bills. The government will continue to operate, for a while, anyway. And voters, in a year, may have an opportunity to make the denizens of the monkeyhouse pay a real political price for the vandalism that they continue to commit, unashamedly, to the political commonwealth and the government that is the political commonwealth's most important ongoing manifestation.

Then, predictably, the roof fell in.

There were the new revelations that the National Security Agency tapped the phones of world leaders, most notably the cellphone belonging to German chancellor Angela Merkel, who expressed anger at this high-handed surveillance activity by a distant, unaccountable power. (The Greeks, who were victimized by the high-handed economic activity on the part of the distant and unaccountable Angela Merkel, must have been particularly amused by her outrage. But no matter.) Then, of course, there was Glitch-ghazi-gate, the troubled rollout of the Affordable Care Act's website that occasioned yet another round of mock concern from the Republicans in Congress -- now desperate to change the subject from how they almost blew up the economy -- and from the courtier press -- now desperate to get away from a story in which there was no spurious "balance" to hide behind. NBC, in particular, seemed positively frantic to prove its non-liberalism to the world.

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What this very strange period ultimately proves is that Barack Obama, for all his talk about how "Washington" doesn't work, and all his endless praise for the essential goodness of the American people, has to know by now that we are in fact a very political people, easily manipulated, and carefully divided against each other, over and over again, and by people who know how. I never bought the 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention ("We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America!"), never bought a word of it. Now we are seeing it in its fundamental eclipse. Whatever Obamaism really is, it has run its course. The fight now is over what comes next.